as our colleague bob costa and bob woodward had previously reported, had been in touch with the vice president ahead of january 6th in that retelling of their interaction in their book, quayle indicated a minor level of, you know of potentially not mike pence not being as resolute as he could have been in that decision, although ultimately, obviously, mike pence went on to block the electoral certification. we confirmed that liz cheney had reached out to quayle and he went on the record and gave us a statement that said that the two did, in fact, speak and that, actually, you know, there was no sense of any hesitation on the part of mike pence to do the right thing, and that he praised and lauded the vice president for his efforts in making sure that democracy was not derailed. but you know, it s unclear so
it was out last week, and it s the section that s reporting from bob woodward and robert costa. pence almost did it, pence almost did the eastman plan. and one insider said, i don t know how close he was one way or the other. we ll never know whether the call to vice president quayle was something to put him over the edge to certify. the direction of the phone call makes it seem that pence was parroting to quayle. there was no fraud. if there was fraud, he ll be out there with a siren. there was no fraud. the notion that pence was so close that it took a call from dan quayle to get him to do the right thing. it feels like another chilling reality that maybe we didn t appreciate at the time. imagine, it s dan quayle who pulls him back off the ledge.
gop has always gone in the direction of so-called idealogical balance. is that where you see this going this time? first of all, there are as many theories about how the vice president gets picked as there are people mentioned to be the vice president. but yeah, i do think this kind of idealogical mixing does have some real heft to it. mccain was in a similar position to where romney is now. won the nomination but distrusted by the conservative base and he picks palin. in 2000, bush picking cheney was more of a gravitas pick, but i don t think bush could have picked somebody like a tom ridge for example. keep going back and go all the way back to ronald reagan it s amazing. mccain and palin, bush and cheney. dole goes to kemp. bush senior goes to quayle.